The Beekeeping Club presents a unique opportunity open to all with absolutely no experience necessary. The club offers exciting opportunities to be up close with the bees as well as watch from a distance.

So far, the club has been meeting sporadically, based on the fluctuating weather and due to the fact that it is a newer club. However, with the summer weather starting to appear, the club is headed towards more consistently scheduled meeting times and is thrilled about the new hive that was brought to the high school campus recently.

The Beekeeping Club focuses on education about bees, including their current population size, their positive impacts as a species, as well as maintaining a hive.

While we humans often demonize bees based on their notoriety of stinging humans, Beekeeping Club encourages seeing bees from a different point of view.

The club recognizes that bees are, when treated properly, kind creatures that play both a prominent and beneficial role on earth.

However, when speaking to Sydney Ethen ‘18, one of the clubs two leaders and the founder of the club’s restart about two years ago, explained that humans play a major role in contributing to the rapid population decrease of the species.

This very issue is what killed the bees and ended the earlier bee club many years ago. According to Ethen, “They couldn’t hive bees anymore because the toxin that killed the bees prevented any new hives.”

With the new club, they are not only helping bees but also the planet. As Ethen explains, “[Beekeeping] is something that anyone can do to help the earth at its current state.” During a time when the bee count is depleting, the club’s small contribution with the Blake hive helps strengthen the bee population.

By joining the Beekeeping club, you can further your understanding of these creatures that play a large part in the environment surrounding us, while also enjoying the fun and interactive aspects of the club.

As the courts opened up late for the spring this year, the Boys’ Tennis team’s season commenced with a new member–Gary.

Tennis matches often host an audience of numerous parents accompanied by dogs, yet this Bernese pup has been a particularly popular attraction for new audiences. Students stop by to see Gary and often stick around to watch the matches. While Jon Carlson ‘19 comments, “People just come to see Gary and then leave,” owner Joe Mairs ’20 rebuttals with, “Well that’s better than last year; last year no one stopped by.”

Aside from bringing in a crowd, Gary may be a lucky charm; the team’s record this year is almost perfect with one loss so far into their first AA season.

Having a smaller audience has not taken a toll on the teams’ success, however, Chris Hall ‘19 says they would like to see more students in the crowd; he says, “[attendance] helps more in bigger matches because a bigger crowd is a better atmosphere to play in.”

Regarding Gary’s affect on the matches, Hall says, “[he] adds huge motivation and a bit of incentive for fans to come. I heard he struggles with the heat but I always appreciate the spirit and willingness to come to the matches.”

Eva BerezovskyChris Hall ‘19 prepares to serve against Benilde-St. Margaret’s. Hall and his partner, Ravi Chepuri ‘18, will be competing in the individuals state tournament in June.

For the team, Gary is almost like their own mascot, coming to watch almost every match. Hall says, “Gary is definitely not just another dog in the crowd. Over the past few years there hasn’t been a dog like him that shows the same level of support.”

He is a special addition to the team, incomparable to their other fans due to his loyalty. Hall concludes, “My dog comes to matches here and there but I don’t think you can match my dog to Gary because Gary is Gary.”

The boys’ and girls’ track and field teams are wrapping up another successful season.

The girls are doing very well this year, winning the conference championship on May 17 despite having significantly fewer members than other teams in the conference. About the boys’ team, captain Sean LeBlanc ‘18 says that “the season has been OK, but a few of our main varsity guys have had injury issues.” The boys won 4th in the conference.

Unlike most sports, the high school track team is both upper school and middle school students. LeBlanc loves this combination, saying “this is a great system that keeps the younger athletes engaged with older and more experienced athletes to keep them working hard and coming back year after year.”

Robbie Grace ‘19, one of the two captains of the girls’ team, was extremely successful at the conference meet. She broke the class A state record for long jump, with a staggering 19’5” jump. “I am honestly so excited for the success of our program,” says Grace “we are so young and can really do something great … My personal success also excites me because there is still so much room for improvement with my technique and form and I believe that more good jumps are coming soon.”

Coaches will select which competitors move on to sections. Two Blake athletes from each event will compete at sections, with the hopes of going to state. Some athletes with exceptional results, like Grace, automatically qualify for state.

The school’s chapter of DECA recently opened a school store called Bear Necessities. DECA is a nonprofit organization that allows students to explore entrepreneurship and gain experience in business through competitions. The store was opened to reduce expensive competition fees by as much as possible while still having a profit, and to increase the accessibility of DECA to everyone at Blake. Additionally, having a school store presents a unique opportunity for kids to be involved in a business in any way they want to.

From tracking inventory to interacting with customers, the store gives club members hands-on experience with business in a welcoming environment. Bear Necessities is open 10 minutes before and after school and during both lunches. The store provides many different goods such as chocolate, drinks, and school supplies. DECA Vice President Timo Hemphill ‘20 believes that “the store was something missing from Blake, especially because we have a business club, and it’s a great way to practice interacting with customers… that’s probably the greatest possible impact of the store.” Additionally, Bear Necessities is right outside the lunchroom, where nearly everyone drops their backpacks on the way to lunch. Amanda Ward ‘21, who often staffs the store before school and during first lunch, explains that a lot of students pass the store and often will “come up and say hi to me…it’s really fun.”

But while the location is very central, it’s also in a congested area, as Paris Del Castillo ‘19 explains, “It takes up a lot of room and causes traffic jams while the often unoccupied table just sits there.”Additionally, there has been some backlash surrounding high prices. Del Castillo says, “I feel like the funds [supplied by Forum] could have been used for something else…we can get what they sell from a variety of other places,” remarks Del Castillo. However, another reason the store was opened was to make students lives more convenient, as they can purchase what they need at Blake and then won’t have to go to stores after school. Hemphill is determined to “make appropriate prices, but we really want to pay back our loan first and sometimes that means we need to raise our prices.”

The current goal is to pay back their loan, but other dreams include opening a permanent storefront and making competition fees as low as possible. As Hemphill says, the end goal is really to make Bear Necessities “a staple of the Blake School.”

Assassins, a Nerf battle royale in which students compete for glory and prizes among their fellow classmates, is a unique, highly competitive game played at high schools across the country. The premise is that students form teams and pay a fee to play, “killing” other participants by shooting them with Nerf guns. The winner is the team (or member of the team) who is alive at the end of the game. In the past, previous underclassmen had anxiously awaited the chance to play, as the game is typically only open to juniors and seniors. Jake Lundberg ‘19 had always look forward to Assassins, revealing that “even as a sophomore, I tried to help my upperclassmen friends… Now I couldn’t be more excited to participate.” Many other past underclassmen share Jake’s opinion, as freshman, Frieda Liston ‘19 looked forward to playing assassins because she felt that “it brought all of the upperclassmen together.”

However, the culture around assassins has changed in recent years. On December 4, 2015, two Lakeville North students were killed in a fatal car crash while playing in a Nerf war. In reflecting on the case, Dakota County Attorney Jim Backstrom stated to the Star Tribune that, “These types of games, which can involve aggressive behaviors among youth, have no place in our schools and communities and should end.” The effect the deaths were obvious, as the students immediately terminated the game, and the families of the victims sued the school district. This tragic event has spurred widespread backlash against Nerf-style games, and even today Blake parents are hesitant to let their kids play assassins.

Nowadays many underclassmen are hesitant in playing assassins, as the dangers of the game have become apparent since 2015 incident. Sam Deignan ‘20 reflects on these concerns, saying “I think it should be fun to play, I just hope that they keeping making the game safer for everyone.”

Accordingly, this year’s gamemakers are determined to make the game enjoyable while ensuring all the participants safety. Chris Gill ‘18, one of the three gamemakers, recognizes that, “Students who have played this game around the country have seriously hurt themselves while trying to eliminate other players.” In response, Gill and his fellow gamemaker CameronOden ‘18, have revised the existing assassins rulebook passed down to them by last year’s leaders to totally eliminate vehicles from play, decreeing that no kills will count while an engine is on.

Every spring students embark on the challenging, at times stressful, experience of acting or directing a Student Directed Play. Completely organized and executed by student directors, the program takes place over a couple weeks in April. During these weeks of auditions, direction, rehearsals, tech rehearsals, and performances are all under way, organized chiefly by a handful of directors, each with their own short plays, actors, and schedule.

In fact, the entire production must be planned in only six one hour rehearsals. While this may sound like a lot to handle, senior director Sydney Ethen reflects: “If you have a good group of people and everyone’s doing what they’re supposed to, it’s really easy.” Ethen is directing ‘Universal Language,’ a tale about a man inventing his own language.

Expectedly, most of the play takes place in gibberish. When asked about her experience stepping into the director’s role, Sydney added, “It was a really natural thing for me, but I know for other directors it’s really hard, who have a background in acting, it’s a really different mindset to go in, we don’t usually get to reach into the directing scene.”

For Henry Roach ‘19, the student directed plays are a refreshing contrast to the fall musical and spring play where “essentially all the thinking is done for you.” In addition to the time management skills necessary to execute such a big undertaking, actors and directors alike must deal with the dynamic of student directing student, which can be both fun and intimidating.

The Otis Environmental Authors Program was created by Philip Otis ‘91’s family following his death in 1995. Otis was a student ranger and was participating in a rescue mission at Mount National Park. The objective of the mission was to save a man with a fractured ankle. The man, however, was 13,500 feet up the northeastern side of the mountain. At about 13,200 feet, Philip stopped to fix his equipment and fell to his death. The man they intended to save was later rescued by others.

After graduating high school, Otis took classes at the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Wyoming. The school is known to be rigorous and is well-known for its Outdoor classes. At NOLS, Otis learned about wilderness survival skills, and later moved on to attend Bates College. Quinn Kiernat ‘17, a Blake alumnus who currently attends Bates College comments, “I had heard of Philip Otis before attending Bates. I think it is cool to attend the same school that such a cool person like Otis had attended.”

The Otis family made personal contributions to the school, which helped fund the renovation of the central student courtyard in the Upper School campus. Today, students of all grades appreciate the courtyard as it is a great place to chat, have lunch, or a play a game when the weather becomes warm. “I really enjoy the courtyard in the spring and fall,” says Gavin McDonough ‘19. “When the weather is nice, I tend to go there during my free blocks and lunch periods. I find it a great way to spend time outside and enjoy the warm weather. I am sure Philip would be very happy to see the uses of the courtyard today.”

Funding also went towards the Environmental Authors Program. The program, thanks to the Otis family’s donations, has made impacts beyond the school community.

Anish Aggarwal ‘18, a member of the Otis environmental steering committee, states, “I have always enjoyed seeing the wonderful beauties that mother nature has to offer. Protection of the environment is something that I consider very important to my personal life. Therefore, I think the Otis Environment Program is a really cool way to boost learning in the Blake community about the environment while simultaneously helping it.”

As the 2018 Environmental Authors Program speaker, Dr. Robin Kimmerer sparked controversy and thought. Saji Champlin ‘19 says, “[Kimmerer] was very interesting. I enjoyed the assembly.” On the other hand, Will Becker ‘19 states “I found her ideas to be somewhat incorrect. How can a plant talk and think like a human? I also found it strange that the school decided to bring in a speaker that feels like plants have the same rights as humans.”

Blake’s College Map, located in the college counseling area, will have a noteworthy change when it is posted for the class of 2018. The map will still show all of the schools our seniors will be attending next year, but unlike past iterations of the map, student names will not be included.

The primary reason that names will be removed is, according to college counselor Jim Mahoney, that students frequently didn’t want to have their college of choice be shown to everyone at the school. About past years, Mahoney says that “each year we [college counseling] would hear from more and more kids behind the scenes who didn’t want their name on the map … kids who maybe didn’t get their first choice or had to make a decision based on cost or other factors that have them feel less promotional about their choice.”

It is also important to note that Blake’s tradition of posting student decisions is very uncommon, as Mr. Mahoney states that “we really couldn’t find another independent school that put student names on a map the way we did.”

When told about the change coming to the map, some seniors had very excited reactions. Linus Bendel-Stenzel ‘18 says that the removal of names is “fantastic because it lets people be anonymous when they want to, and otherwise, they can tell people [about their school of choice] if they want to.”

Other seniors were less positive about the change. Campbell Morrison ‘18 feels that Blake “just tries to make getting into college seem not stressful instead of just acknowledging that it is stressful. They just try to then dissociate kids from their colleges that they got in to.”

Mr. Mahoney summarized the decision by saying “we want to be proud of our students but we also want to honor those students that don’t feel comfortable having their name and college put up for the whole school to see. There are a lot of opportunities for kids to tell people where they’re going but we didn’t feel institutionally that that was our job to publicize it.”